The sounds and scents were home. That sense of safety that always enveloped me here rushed over me like a wave. My eyes watered, and then Luca and Ben were there, hugging me close.
“I know,” Ben murmured against the side of my head.
“I feel it too,” Luca concluded. “We’re home.”
Chapter Fifteen
Ben
Being home was the best. I hadn’t realized how much it would affect me to be away until I got back.
We were currently all on the couch. My head was on Luca’s lap and my feet were on Brodie’s. He had his hand on my bare ankle and it settled my soul something fierce.
Max sat on the floor, holding my hand while he leaned against Brodie’s legs.
Rian lounged on Luca’s other side. All our important connections were being—“We’re being recharged,” I said out loud, mid-thought, interrupting any conversations that were going on around me.
I moved my foot to gesture at Brodie’s hand. Everyone looked at all of us and the laughter that rolled through us all was everything. Even Cindy on top of her tree chirped happily as if she understood what was going on. That set off another bout of laughter.
This was the life, wasn’t it?
“Oh, hey, so should we have a pack meeting while we’re all here?” Kye asked suddenly.
“Might as well,” Brodie agreed with his mate and kissed him. Then he addressed everyone. “So we’ve all talked about what’s going to start happening when the snow melts.”
The final renovations, right.
We talked about the sunroom and Rian told everyone how Holden was thinking about maybe putting in a catio for Cindy—for some reason Holden still thought he couldn’t ask for these things. The man was way too humble and didn’t understand how big of a part of this pack he really was, or how much we loved him.
Since Lina was there, curled up on one end of the couch with Carys, Brodie asked her if she wanted to take on the catio build.
“Maybe your dad would like to use it as one of your apprenticeship projects?” Rian asked.
She was technically her dad’s apprentice, but had been working on the pack house with Brodie for months and months in between other jobs. It apparently wasn’t easy for her to always see eye to eye with her dad when it came to work, because he saw her as his little girl still, or some such. Either way, she was a talented builder already and Brodie, who had a lot of experience in the field, was happy to be her mentor.
“Could be interesting,” she murmured, then looked at Holden. “If you don’t mind me doing it?”
“Oh, not at all. We could figure out the spot and the measurements once the snow’s gone. Make an actual plan and everything,” he said easily, smiling at her.
“It’s not a difficult thing to build, it just needs to be very precise to look good, so I think it would be a nice thing to add to your portfolio,” Brodie added, raising a brow at her.
Smiling, she nodded. “Good point. We’ve been doing a lot of other types of stuff here. When we start to tear apart the sunroom so we can start replacing what’s rotted, it’s not gonnabe anything that needs finesse the same way building a catio will.”
They went on, planning the catio’s location a bit, talked about the extension to the tiny porch in the back corner, and I closed my eyes just to listen to my family talk around me.
“Ben?” Brodie asked some time later. I might’ve dozed off.
“Huh?” I squinted at him. Everyone was still where I’d left them when I closed my eyes so it couldn’t be much later.
“I was asking Max, Luca, and you if we want to make changes in the rooms.”
“Oh.” That seemed important, so I maneuvered myself upright, careful not to kick Max on the floor. I glanced at Luca and Max. “What do we think?”
They both shrugged. We now occupied two rooms, which made no sense when Luca had very little stuff and we all ended up in the same bed most nights. Unless Luca fell asleep on the couch down here while watching something on the TV with Rian or Carys. Even then, he joined us eventually during the night.
I knew Max and Luca didn’t have opinions because Luca felt he was too new to the pack and Max was… well, Max.
“Okay, so I’m not trying to fish for information or whatever,”—I waved a hand and looked at Carys and Lina—“but since Lina stays here a lot of the time, I think it’s safe to say you two wouldn’t mind having a bigger room?” I smiled at them.
